This project aims to uncover which memory processes are impaired and which memory processes are spared in amnesia by analyzing in detail the amnesic's performance as a function of the processing demands underlying various verbal memory tasks. The studies are organized around three areas of information processing which are thought to be critical to the formation of new verbal memories. In a first section, the amnesic's initial analysis of verbal information is studied using paradigms that tap lexical processing on-line. Using both single words and sentences as stimuli, the hypothesis is tested that amnesics will perform normally on tasks in which the context guides stimulus analysis, but will be deficient at tasks which require self-generated processes. The implications of this distinction for repetition priming effects are also examined. In a second section, the effects of a single study episode on memory abilities downstream from initial analysis are examined. This is done using traditional implicit memory tasks as well as oppositional memory tasks which attempt to isolate the automatic and effortful effects of memory. Finally, in a third group of studies, the effects of repeated exposure to verbal stimuli will be investigated. To examine whether amnesics can acquire generic, context- free knowledge through a compilation of episodic events, their effortful and automatic use of words which are new to the English vocabulary is compared. Subsequent studies focus on the effortful use of memory and examine whether amnesics can benefit from repeated exposure within the limits set by their memory for single presentations.